1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of floral arrangement and presentation. More specifically the present invention relates to a sleeve for receiving and retaining the cut stems of various plants including flowers, the sleeve being internally divided into compartments for separating the plant stems by type or category, for subsequent removal and placement into a floral arrangement. The invention also contemplates using one of the compartments for goods other than plant life, such as a vase, teddy bear, candy, or other gifts.
The most common examples of groups of stems to be separated by these dividers are those of: feature flowers such as roses, carnations, alstomeria and sunflowers; fillers such as novibelgi, asters, gypsophilia and limonium; and greens such as leather leaf, tree fern, beargrass and eucalyptus. The stems have cut ends which protrude from a lower end of the sleeve, and several of the sleeves are placed together in a bucket containing water so that the cut ends remain immersed and draw water to extend the shelf life of the plant stems, particularly to keep flowers from wilting. The sleeve retains the plant stems for storage, transport to and display in a store, and for ultimate arrangement into a bouquet by a purchaser of the sleeve and stems.
The sleeve is formed of sheet material formed into a truncated cone configuration. At least one divider, preferably formed of the same sheet material, extends across the interior of the cone, dividing the cone interior into two or more longitudinal compartments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have long been wrappers and sleeves for retaining flower and other plant stems for sale in non-arranged form, while permitting protruding cut stem ends to be immersed in water to prolong shelf life. A problem with these prior devices has been that various types of plant stems in a given sleeve become intermingled, so that the person who purchases and tries to selectively remove them one by one to arrange them has to hunt for the type of plant stem desired at the moment, so that considerable effort and time is lost.
There is no known structure aimed at solving this problem, but a related structure is found in Aldrich, U.S. Pat. No. 5,477,637, issued on Dec. 26, 1995, for a floral bouquet stem separator. Aldrich includes a substantially rigid separator plate having flower stem passing holes and a conventional tying element such as a rubber band. The flower stems are fitted through the plate holes, in their final floral arrangement, so that the holes cause the stems to fan outwardly from the tying element at a sharper angle than they would without the plate, to make the arrangement appear fuller and larger. A problem with Aldrich is that the perforated plate, if supplied with non-arranged flowers, an outer wrapper would still be required to retain and protect the flowers in each given bundle. The device is also relatively bulky compared to the present invention and could be relatively more expensive.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a floral sleeve which keeps plant stems separated into groups such as by type, color or other category for ease in individual, selective removal of the stems from the sleeve to create a floral arrangement.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a sleeve which is capable of configuration during manufacture to separately retain two, three or more such groups of plant stems in any of a range of desired numerical proportions.
It is still another object of the present invention to benefit the final consumer with an appreciation of the freshness of the various flowers or plant varieties in a separated format, because freshness is not as easily detected when the same are intermingled in an arranged bouquet.
An additional object of the present invention is to allow consumers a choice of not buying an arranged bouquet because some consumers prefer to do their own arranging, but lack the knowledge of which varieties go well together. The invention accordingly contemplates experts preselecting and packaging in a single compartmented sleeve different varieties appropriate to each other for arrangement after purchase by the consumer.
A further object of the present invention to provide such a sleeve which can collapse laterally and be folded for compact storage and transport prior to filling with plant stems.
One more object of the invention is utilize the inventive structure to package together plant life and other things such as a vase, teddy bear, candy, or other gifts.
It is finally an object of the present invention to provide such a sleeve which is simple in construction, lightweight, easy to use and highly inexpensive to manufacture.